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Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), Premier of the former Soviet Union from 1958 to 1964, described a time in the Communist republic’s history when a wave of petty theft was sweeping through the government-owned plants. To curtail the stealing, guards were placed at factory entrances to watch the laborers as they entered and departed. At the Leningrad timberworks, one of the guards spotted Pyotr Petrovich leaving the yard with a wheelbarrow filled with a bulky sack. A guard became dutifully suspicious.
“Come on, Petrovich,” said the guard. “What have you got there?”
“Just sawdust and shavings,” Petrovich replied.
“Come on,” the guard said, “I wasn’t born yesterday. Tip it out.” Out it came—nothing but sawdust and shavings. So he was allowed to put it all back again and go home.
The same thing happened every night all week, and the guard was getting extremely frustrated. Finally, his curiosity overcame his frustration.
“Petrovich,” he said, “I know you. Tell me what you’re smuggling out of here, and I’ll let you go.”
“Wheelbarrows,” said Petrovich.[1]
“When error comes, it always rides in on the wings of truth.”[2] Error has been smuggled into the church under the pretense of truth since the beginning of time (Gen 3:1-7). Jesus warned His disciples not to be led astray by traditions that have the effect of setting “aside the commandment of God” (Mark. 7:9). It is no less true today than in John’s day that “many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1), many of whom “went out from us” (2:19). It’s an old story, and we shouldn’t be surprised that it happens today.
Thinking Straight in a Crooked World
The nursery rhyme "There Was a Crooked Man" is an appropriate description of how sin affects us and our world. We live in a crooked world of ideas evaluated by crooked people. Left to our crooked nature, we can never fully understand what God has planned for us and His world. God has not left us without a corrective solution. He has given us a reliable reference point in the Bible so we can identify the crookedness and straighten it.
Buy NowKeep in mind that false doctrines most often arise from within the church, “from among your own selves” (Acts 20:30) Paul warned. Jesus saved his harshest criticism for the religious leaders of Israel for the simple reason that they are religious leaders who carry the weight of authority with their words (Matt. 21:23-46; 23:2-3; James 3:1). Jesus told Nicodemus, who was “the teacher of Israel,” that he should have understood basic theological truths (John 3:10). While a false doctrine has the outward appearance of orthodoxy, in terms of what the Bible states, it is rotten to the core (Matt. 23:25-28). Heresy most often enters the church under the cover of some orthodox claims. Irenaeus, a second-century Christian writer, describes the insidious nature of error wrapped in a veneer of truth:
Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to be inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than truth itself.[3]
The claim is often made by some well-meaning Christian that the world and the things in the world are off limits to Christians; that the best way to live the Christian life is not to get involved in “the world.” Holiness is defined as an escape from this world, if not physically through some cataclysmic eschatological event like a pretribulational rapture,[4] then certainly by being separated from the affairs of this world by an unwillingness to acknowledge that God has made us stewards of His good creation of which one day He will demand an accounting (Matt. 25:14-30). Instead of following the directive of Abraham Kuyper who said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!,’”[5] we often choose, “there is not one inch of creation of which Satan doesn’t say ‘Mine.’” Historically, the church did not divide the world into two opposing realms, consisting of sacred/secular, spiritual/ material. More importantly, the Bible does not divide the world this way. The Bible is concerned about the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral wherever such distinctions can be made.
The biblical doctrine of creation tells us that the created order is an arena for Christian activity and ministry. God put Adam and Eve in the midst of the garden to “cultivate it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Rulership was also given to man. While God reserves ultimate authority and sovereignty for Himself, He delegates a subordinate authority and sovereignty to man as a steward and vice-regent over the created order. God also sets the rules by which man is to exercise that delegated stewardship and sovereignty. In fact, it was the breaking of these established creation laws that got Adam and Eve exiled from the garden. Even so, they were still called upon to live and work in the world (3:22-24).
Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths
Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths takes a closer look at God's Word and applies it to erroneous misinterpretations of the Bible that have resulted in a virtual shut-down of the church's full-orbed mission in the world (Acts 20:27). Due to these mistaken interpretations and applications of popular Bible texts to contemporary issues, the Christian faith is being thrown out and trampled under foot by men (Matt. 5:13).
Buy Now[1] Os Guinness, “The Christian and Society,” in James M. Boice, ed., Transforming Our World: A Call to Action (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press, 1988), 52.
[2] A. Wilson Phillips, “Seeing the Future Clearly,” Hidden Manna (March 2002), 6.
[3] Irenaeus, Against Heresies (1.2). Quoted in Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 6.
[4] See Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church, 5th ed. (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, [1999] 2025) and Left Behind: Separating Fact from Fiction (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2001).
[5] Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in James D. Bratt, ed., Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 488.